2010年1月1日 星期五

Fantasy and reality

This is a wood-block print entitled "Missy Liu's great victory over the Wuo-noo". The date of its publication is unknown. It appears to be part of an illustrated folklore recounting a battle against the Japanese takeover of Taiwan. 倭奴 (Wuo-noo), in the title, is a derogatory term with a connotation just a tad worse than "the Japs" used by the Americans during WW2.

[Click to enlarge]

A loose translation of the text: "That the subordinates must die to avenge the insolent insults to the emperor is the rule since time immemorial. General Liu [i.e., 劉永福Liu Yung-Fu] has defended Tainan successfully achieving many victories. Then there is Missy Liu, who hates the guts of the Wuo-noo, has formed an army of female soldiers to attack the Wuo-noo in Taipei. The latter are just a disorganized mob, no match for the women warriors. They are defeated crying out in great sorrow, and the wailing reaches the heaven."

The captions are:劉紅仙: Liu Hong-Hsian, most likely Liu Yung-Fu's daughter, or Missy Liu, if you will賽本菊: Sai Ben-Ju, most likely Missy Liu's second in command陳軍師: Chief of Staff Chen, who is seen operating an imaginary flame thrower生番兵: The Aboriginal warriors directed by Chen

Both triangular banners are the much-famed Black-flags of Liu Yung-Fu. In the picture, the Japanese are being slaughtered, as they are running away in horror, by Missy Liu and her lance-wielding Amazons (with bound feet, no less).

It is unknown if there were really Commanders Liu and Sai; although the victory in Taipei never did happen. And the deployment of combatant women soldiers, even though true in Chinese history, but probably not so in this case.

Does this mean that the defense of Taiwan was based on fantasies? Not at all. The battles were fought with great bravery at huge losses that strongly indicated an over-matched firepower. The equipment of the regular army dated back to the Sino-French War, and the militia often were armed only with cold weapons. These were all perfectly understood by the Taiwanese and yet they still chose to fight on. There was no re-supply or reinforcement from China; no navy to protect the shoreline or to engage the IJN fleet at sea. The odds were stacked against the Taiwanese. Even so, the loss of the Japanese was so high that the casualty stats must be white-washed with reports of deaths owing to illnesses - in order to retain both the public and the governmental supports.

The harsh reality is illustrated in the diagram below:In the First Sino-Japanese war (1894-5), the Japanese army and navy had coordinated their attacks on land and from the sea when advancing through the Korean Peninsula. The same was applied in the conquest of Taiwan. The IJN fleet, fresh from the victories in the Yellow Sea and Port Arthur, quickly escorted the first Japanese force, the Imperial Guards (of about 7,000 men), to land near Keelung (upper right) on May 29, 1895. A peaceful takeover it wasn't, the red crosses on the island (on the map above) indicate major skirmishes where the Taiwanese fought back.

The bulk of the IJN fleet soon arrived in the already occupied Pescadores (Peng-hu on the left) and on Oct 10, two crack regiments (each around 6,000 men) sailed from Peng-hu, and landed in 布袋Pu-Tai (near 嘉義Chia-I) and 枋寮Fang-liao (near 打狗Takow), respectively. [Note: Takow was later renamed 高雄, pronounced Takao in Japanese and Kaohsiung in Chinese.]

The Imperial Guards, having already been engaged in quite a number of deadly encounters with the Taiwanese militias since the occupation of Taipei in June, fought their way south. On Aug 8, they defeated the local defenders in 新竹Hsin-Chu followed by another fierce battle in 彰化Changhua on Aug 27, and yet another in Chia-I on Oct 9.

The Japanese strategy was for the remaining Guardsmen and the two reinforcement units to mount attacks from both north and south to ultimately capture Tainan, the last stronghold still in the hands of Liu Yung-Fu's army.

In addition, five Japanese warships arrived in the outskirts of the Port of Takow on Oct 12, 1895. At 7AM on Oct 13 (another source puts it at the 16th), three of them, 秋津洲Akitsushima, 浪速Naniwa, and the flagship 吉野Yoshino opened fire and bombarded the port which quickly fell. In fact, the mere sight of these steely warships was at once demoralizing to the defenders. The British had evacuated their citizens to a battleship expecting a prolonged battle which, however, never materialized. Everyone went home in the afternoon.

(Above: 秋津洲Akitsushima - 3,100 tons)

(浪速Naniwa - 3,650 tons - which had also visited Danshui on June 9, 1895)

(The flagship 吉野Yoshino - 4,150 tons)

Once Chia-I fell and Takow lost, Liu Yung-Fu had no choice but to sue for a conditional surrender: clemency for the Taiwanese fighters and repatriation of his 黑旗軍black-flag army to Amoy or Canton. The Japanese, however, demanded an unconditional one. With no other recourses, Liu abandoned his army, fled on board a British ship (the SS Thales) in disguise, and headed for Amoy on Oct 20.

The City of Tainan yielded on Oct 21, 1895.

On Oct 22, about 8,000 of the still well-armed and once proud 黑旗軍, who had defeated the French many times in the Sino-French war in Tonkin, surrendered to the Japanese. One day later, only some 5,100 were repatriated. As in the case of the repatriation of Qing soldiers in Danshui, there was a discrepancy in the number of soldiers before and after the process. And how many actually safely arrived back in Amoy was also unknown.